Chapter four of Sanhedrin begins with a discussion about whether or not a document is valid if it is produced after the fact. One would think that a witness must sign and produce a document at the time an event occurs, in order to avoid questions about whether the witnesses were actually present or whether they fabricated the story after the fact. This seems obvious, and I was surprised to learn that in fact, a post-dated document can be valid.
Rashi says that a post-dated document is valid as long as the witnesses acknowledge that the event took place prior to the time in which they produce the document. For this reason, and to avoid any speculation down the road, Rashi recommends that the witnesses actually date their document with their current date and location, acknowledging that the event occurred earlier. Even if the witness writes the date and location where the transaction took place, the document is still valid! (32a2 footnote 19)
This is a particularly interesting opinion that I think many modern day organizations should consider adopting. I am especially thinking of the NYDO, the New York Dart Organization, a fascinating organization I recently joined. Yes, I joined a dart league. The league is surprisingly serious and institutional. You have to fill out a carbon copy form (see above) documenting who played, everyone's score, signatures, dates, location, etc.
We had our first match last night and for the sake of the dignity of my fellow teammates I will choose not to report the results of the match on this forum. Our opponents, who have been in the league for eight years and entered the bar with their plaques from last season, were not too thrilled about our lax attitude and knowledge of the rules. They informed us that even spelling a player's name wrong on the form can result in a deduction of points. Anyway, we foolishly left these important carbon-copy documents at home on the first night of play! We realized this about an hour before game time and instead of traveling back to Brooklyn to get them, we just printed a copy of the online form. We figured we would later transfer the results to the official form and mail it in the next day. HUGE no-no! Turns out, we absolutely cannot fill out the official carbon copy document after the fact, even if we have a substitute/unofficial form recording the results of the match.
Luckily, the bartender had extra copies of the official form from last year's league, but boy did we get a scolding! If only I had read today's daf a day earlier, I could have suggested Rashi's opinion and leniency on this issue. Sometimes the Rabbis really hit the bulls-eye!
Where in Sanhedrin does it discuss how many judges are required to score a dart match? Seems suspect that we provide our own scorers and we only need one. What if the only scorer is my uncle's daughter's husband?
ReplyDeleteAlso, we lost 1 to 15.
Jill - great post. It doesn't sound like these shifty darters would be interested in post dating any documents or listening to Rashi's reasoning. Boy do they sound like sticklers for the rules.
ReplyDeleteAs for the 1-15 loss, think back to our first kickball game when we were creamed by like 50 points. We went on to a pretty successful season (aside from the game we had to forfeit on the 2nd day of Rosh Hashanah, those bastards!) Anyways, you're heading for the bulls-eye guys!
Well done on this, Jill.
ReplyDeleteI smell a book in the works: Rashi in the Bar.
Think about it.